Communication systems are known to transport large amounts of data between a plurality of end user devices, which, for example, include telephones, facsimile machines, computers, television sets, cellular telephones, personal digital assistants, etc. As is known, such communication systems may be local area networks (LANs) and/or wide area networks (WANs) that are stand-alone communication systems or interconnected to other LANs and/or WANs as part of a public switched telephone network (PSTN), packet switched data network (PSDN), integrated service digital network (ISDN), or Internet. As is further known, communication systems include a plurality of system equipment to facilitate the transporting of data. Such system equipment includes, but is not limited to, routers, switches, bridges, gateways, protocol converters, frame relays, and private branch exchanges.
The transportation of data within communication systems is governed by one or more standards that ensure the integrity of data conveyances and fairness of access for data conveyances. For example, there are a variety of Ethernet standards that govern serial transmissions within a communication system at data rates of 10 megabits per second, 100 megabits per second, 1 gigabit per second and beyond. Synchronous Optical NETwork (SONET), for example, currently provides for up to 10 gigabits-per-second. In accordance with such standards, many system components and end user devices of a communication system transport data via serial transmission paths. Internally, however, the system components and end user devices may process data in a parallel manner. As such, each system component and end user device must receive the serial data and convert the serial data into parallel data without loss of information. After processing the data, the parallel data must be converted back to serial data for transmission without loss.
Accurate recovery of information from high-speed serial transmissions typically requires transceiver components that operate at clock speeds equal to or higher than the received serial data rate. Higher clock speeds limit the usefulness of prior art clock recovery circuits that require precise alignment of signals to recover clock and/or data. Higher data rates require greater bandwidth for a feedback loop of the clock recovery circuits to operate correctly. Some prior art designs are bandwidth limited.
As the demand for data throughput increases, so do the demands on a high-speed serial transceiver. The increased throughput demands are pushing some current integrated circuit manufacturing processes to their operating limits, where integrated circuit processing limits (e.g., device parasitics, trace sizes, propagation delays, device sizes) and integrated circuit (IC) fabrication limits (e.g., IC layout, frequency response of the packaging, frequency response of bonding wires) limit the speed at which the high-speed serial transceiver may operate without excessive jitter performance and/or noise performance.
A further alternative for high-speed serial transceivers is to use an IC technology that inherently provides for greater speeds. For instance, switching from a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) process to a silicon germanium or gallium arsenide process would allow integrated circuit transceivers to operate at greater speeds, but at substantially increased manufacturing costs. CMOS is more cost effective and provides easier system integration. Currently, for most commercial-grade applications, including communication systems, such alternate integrated circuit fabrication processes are too cost prohibitive for widespread use.
Modern communication systems, including high data rate communication systems, typically include a plurality of circuit boards that communicate with each other by way of signal traces, bundled data lines, back planes, etc. Accordingly, designers of high data rate communication transceiver devices often have conflicting design goals that relate to the performance of the particular device. For example, there are many different communication protocols specified for data rates that range from 2.48832 gigabits per second for OC48, to 9.95 gigabits per second for OC192. Other known standards define data rates of 2.5 gigabits per second (INFINIBAND) or 3.125 gigabits per second (XAUI). These different data rates affect the allowable rise and fall time of the signal, the peak amplitude of the signal and the response time from an idle state. For example, one protocol may specify a peak voltage range of 200-400 millivolts, while another standard specifies a mutually exclusive voltage range of 500-700 millivolts. Thus, a designer either cannot satisfy these mutually exclusive requirements (and therefore cannot support multiple protocols) or must design a high data rate transceiver device that can adapt according to the protocol being used for the communications.
Along these lines, field programmable gate array (FPGA) circuits are gaining in popularity for providing the required flexibility and adaptable performance described above for those designers that seek to build one device that can operate according to multiple protocols. Thus, while FPGA technology affords a designer an opportunity to develop flexible and configurable hardware circuits, specific designs that achieve the desired operations must still be developed.
Test devices for testing integrated circuits generally include expensive testers that can provide up to 36 pico seconds of resolution and lower end testers that are approximately one-third to one-half of the price of higher end testers that only provide 1.5 nanoseconds of resolution. Accordingly, for integrated circuits requiring greater resolution than 1.5 nanoseconds, today's technology requires a high end tester that can provide up to 36 pico seconds resolution. A need, therefore, exists for an intermediate level tester. At the same time, it is advantageous to develop a device that can provide the required resolution for reading and sampling data without requiring significant design efforts.